All In a Day

One can never be so sure what awaits in a day. Of what that we expect, and of what that happens. Some of them can add or subtract another dimension to life and some others could challenge you to the furthest extremes. If things work out the way you wanted it to, you thank lady luck for being so generous and curse for the days that put you otherwise. But, what makes a lucky day? Is it the one that works best, or the one that puts you to test?

The days, this relatively unfamiliar city of Chennai promises to wake me up has its fair amount of tests. Already facing the loss of Puratchi Thalaivi Amma, which made Chennai weep in pain, to facing a cyclone that’s coming to this coast after 22 long years, the initiation to this big city was one ordeal in itself, but today luck seemed to be the last thing that I could ask for.

Waking up late to a normal 7:30 Friday morning and rushing though the routine to get ready for work, I was all ready for the city by 8:20, when the doorbell rang. Opening up two fairly unfriendly men, who without much curtsy ramped into my recently leased out tiny apartment. From the little that I know of Tamil, I could guess they were the earlier tenants and were there to move off the rest of their belongings including the ceiling fans they installed. This itself was an indication to me that this day is no normal day. With no other fans left, I requested for their help in hanging the new ones I bought my self. To my surprise, the obviously uncourteous man agreed on helping me hang one. With a sigh of relief, I left for work while leaving my apartment to my friend.

At work, the situations were more tensed than those at a war zone. The careless interns let the documents pile on either sides of the table which rang some wrong notes on the higher-ups. This led them to order the whole bay be cleaned, by noon. There was ciaos all over and nothing else. All knew they had to do something or the other, and I was no exception. Trying to blend in, I too joined the cleanliness drive. Though a bit frustrated for the fact that this kind of exercise could make me sweat, I did have a spirit of happiness for the tidy office I was longing to have. The exercise extended to almost the entire day leaving me stinking and the office better.

After work, I had to head to the furniture store to get my apartment ready to welcome my mom who is to join us by New Year’s. As I expected the day’s bewilderness to disappear and immerse myself into some serious shopping, there it was, and this time my debit card got declined. The banker’s network got jammed due to the cyclone and that let my hopes to a new low. An hour later, to my luck the swipe worked and I headed back home. Reaching home, I was very ready to try the new ceiling fan that was fixed by morning. Powering on the fan, I spread my both hands to experience the breeze from the only fan my apartment sports. The fan started working at nerve breaking speeds but surprisingly there seems to be no breeze at all. In fact the air around seems to be sucked up by the fan. I quickly stopped the fan an there it was. The idiot who hung it up fixed the leaves in the reverse order which was sucking the air away. With a stool I borrowed from the landlord and a tester I somehow managed to flip the leaves and get it back to normality.

By then, my friend had woken up from the deep sleep he was in, and he being alright is the last thing one would feel on a glimpse of him. The lad was a mess. From his responses to my intruding questions, I was quiet clear. The guy has had nothing close to food since morning cause of the nausea he was going through. With sparing no time, I called my distress number and asked mom her insights. She recommended on getting my friend a cup of light coffee and ORS. In the next hour with a bit of hesitation from my friend’s side, he was all fed and resting.

Now after a long late night shower, I sit back to the comfort of my bed and recollect this day. There comes this confusing question to my mind. What can you call a day like this? An Unlucky day or a lucky one. Unlucky for nothing that happened this day happened smoothly, though lucky in the sense its happy ending and it surely did mature me to the uncertainties in life. Though I leave that part to be figured out, Karma did have a lot of fun with me.